London — If you love the idea of going to a theme park — Thrill-seekers can now take advantage of Google’s online mapping and navigation service to virtually visit some of Britain’s top theme parks including Alton Towers, Legoland and Chessington World of Adventures can now be explored with almost all the fun of the fair from your armchair thanks to Google Street View.
Google has added 360-degree street level images of some of the UK’s biggest theme parks such as: Alton Towers, Chessington World of Adventures, Legoland in Windsor, Thorpe Park and Sea Life in Weymouth, which are some of the widely visited destinations in the UK, attracting visitors from all over Europe.
The Google Trike – a three-wheeled bike with a camera attached – has been roaming around these attractions run by operator Merlin Entertainments.
Commenting on the subject, Mark Fisher from Merlin Entertainments said, “As attractions like theme parks have now flourished to offer so many more rides and activities, it can be difficult to fit everything in without a bit of planning!”
Stating on Google’s decision to include the theme parks in Street View, Laura Scott, spokeswoman for Google Street View, said: “With summer around the corner and the family screaming out for some adventure, Street View should prove the ideal planning tool for a great day out at any of these exhilarating locations.”
All you have to do is visit Google Maps, type the name of one of the parks into the search bar and drag the Street View icon to take your virtual tour. Potential visitors can now view the layout of each of the individual parks online before they leave home to navigate the nearest parks.
“Street View will incorporate another feature to the other tools that we offer our visitors to help in this, and we look forward to extending the facility to more of the Merlin attractions in time.”
All of the parks were photographed using the Google Street View tricycle and seem to have been snapped just early enough to keep off tons of images of long trailing queues.
“Google’s Street View service, which encompasses more than 95 per cent of streets and roads in Britain, has been repeatedly accused of breaching privacy.”
In order to fend off stepping on the toes of privacy advocates, Google has blurred the faces of visitors before using the video on street view and has also asked people to report any image which they find inappropriate.
Coronation Street, Stonehenge, the Millennium Stadium and Warwick Castle are among other landmarks available in Google Street View, as well as 20 National Trust properties and landscapes.